Smyrna times., 1887-03-02
What He Has Been Saved.
THE NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. PERT. or
A MAN WITH ONE RABBITS EYE.

1t IS probable that no great stroke of
fortune could have befalIen Charles A
Williams, of Minneapolis, than the re-
cent failure of a surgeon in New York
to insert a rabbits eye in his head and
make 1t grow there. Mr.. Williams
lost one OF his own eyes when he was
only l3 years old, and having a preiu-
dice against glass eyes on account of
their unhappy habit of trying to look
around corners and of gazing heaven
ward when the natural eye is bent upon
the ground, his soul was filed with
hope when he learned that a New
York opthalmist was satisfied that he
could transplant a rabbits eve to the
human head, and induce it to take root
and grow. He went to New York.
and large rabbit with lustrous hazel
eyes was selected for the victim. Mr..
Williams was informed that there was
no hope of his being able to see with
the rabbits eye, but that it would have
a more natural appearance than a glass
eye, and would conduct itself in har-
mony with his other organ of vision.
1t is only fair to presume, however, that
this was merely little subterfuge on
the part of the surgeon, to induce his
patient to submit to the operation; for
II the optic nerve had taken root and
grown, and the eye had lived and -four
ished, there is every reason to believe
that it would have continued to see as
well from under Mr.. Williams eve
lashes as from the rabbits.
Still it would have been only rab-
bits eye after all, and whatever it saw
would have been seen from a rabbits
standpoint. Mr.. Williams must grad
ually have acquired the habits and
mode of thought of rabbit, at least on
that side of his body most affected by
the new eye, and this unnatural blend
ing OF human nature with rabbit nature
would have been far more inconvenient
than if he had had two rabbits ewes.
and had thus been wholly metempsy-
chosed. If, for instance, with this
rabbit nature controlling him on one
side and the man nature on the other
he had gone hunting and encountered
fox, the man part of him would have
been for shooting the fox, and the
rabbit instinct would have impelled him
to quit the neighborhood as rapidly
and unostentatiously as possible. He
would thus have been torn with con-
hicting emotions, and few such ex-
periences must have undermined his
health and broken him down physically
and mentally.
How would he have conducted him
self when walking through his own
garden? Would the tender green let
tuce and the beautiful red-veined beet
tops must have delighted the eye of the
man side or tickled the dainty palate
of the rabbit side? But these things
would have been trivial COM
pared with his inevitable feelings had
hunger driven him to seek a restau-
rant, and had he there found a dead
and dressed rabbit hanging by the
heels in the window. The mad side
would have urged him to 60 in and eat,
and the rabbit side would have torn
him away with lOathing and disgust.
Such trials must in time have worn out
his manly will force, and left the rabbit
side in the ascendant, in which case he
would have been liable at any moment
to make involuntary incursions upon
the Minneapolis lawns, hopping about
on all fOurs over the rich green grass,
taking here a nibble and there a nibble.
till at length his very appearance might
have changed with his instincts, his
ears elongated and stood upright, and
the unhappy man have fallen victim
Mt last to some street dog. This great
peril Mr.. Williams has escaped by the
failure of the rabbits eye.-NeW York
Times.